- Location
- Old Bethpage
Sometime in 2012, I switched from Tropic Marin Pro to D-D H2Ocean because TMP lacked in Mag/Alk. Everything looked better and my 15 head Hammer Coral grew to 80+ heads and my Galaxea grew from 5 inches to a behemoth 16+ inches (gave it away and kept a small patch) but I would often have Cyano outbreaks and I would use Red Slime Remover to get rid of it. Not sure what could have caused it. I don't over feed, my water is 0 TDS (using Kold Steril II and 2 DI canisters) and I have very good flow with no dead spots and I would occasionally wet/dry vac my sump for detritus (not using filter socks). Then tried the no water change for a while. For roughly about 2 months, I only dosed CAL, ALK and Mag. My tank looked fine. Everyone seemed happy, just some bubble algae started popping up which grew in between my Hammer coral and broke the branches. I finally decided to do a 15 gallon water change and cracked open a new bucket of D-D H2Ocean and about a week later, things went bad....real bad. I had a HUGE Cyanobacteria outbreak. After using red slime remover, a week later I had a Dinoflagellates outbreak and it killed my Hammer corals, my small patch of Galaxea and severely damaged my Favia. I needed to do an emergency water change after one of my 5 long tentacle anemones (1 split into 5) "decided to die" and started to slime so I brought 15 gallons of Nutri Seawater to do a water change after I got the anemone out and a few days later, the Dinoflagellates died off. Tank looked beautiful. Brought two more 5 gallon Nutri Seawater to do 5 gallon changes for the next two weeks. All looked great. Decided to change my salt, thinking I may have a bad batch batch of D-D H2Ocean...plus, it would leave this brown calcified residue on my equipment which sometimes would cease up pumps. So I brought a small box of Reef Crystals with the extra Magnesium and did a 15 gallon change last week. I checked the parameters of the salt before I did the change and it was 1.026/35ppm specific gravity. Cal and Alk were fine but Mag was LOW at 900 (all with Elos). Tested my tank and my Mag was 1400, Cal was 450 and Alk was 9. Proceeded with the water change. 2 days later, the tank smelled something awful. Smelled like low tide in my living room. Checked everything and nothing had died, no gunked up skimmer cup. Everyone seemed fine but I started to see a brown jelly snot start appearing on my power heads, overflow box and rocks. I shut the system down to check my equipment to make sure nothing got sucked up in the sump and I saw a layer of brown mist cloud just hovering above my rocks and Favia. Should of taken a picture. I had 5 gallons left of the Nutri Seawater so I siphoned out that brown cloud stuff. In the bucket, it looked like brown snot and smelled funny. Everything seems fine now. I don't want to keep buying the Nutri Seawater because it is more expensive than buying a bucket of salt...but man, everything seemed to liven up in my tank after using it. It looks like that brown snot is slowly starting to show up again in some spots. I brought another small box of Reef Crystals and was planning to make another 15 gal of new SW this weekend to check to see if the Mag is low again.